Life et al

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Golden moments in Ghana

Shoes play a crucial role in social etiquette, in public most people wear socks and closed toe shoes, or failing this socks and sandals, a sight Mr.Geiger would shudder at.  In poorer areas children scamper around barefoot.  Once a child took my hand when I enquired where a certain school could be found, he left me 2 yards away from the entrance, embarrassed to enter with me because he wasn’t wearing any shoes.  I reassured him that it would be ok, but he was adamant that wearing no shoes would be a mark of disrespect to the headmaster.  I encountered these children on a beach at Cape Coast, they were completely wrapped up in a game of ‘Hide the empty wrapper in the sand then try and find it again’.  One of the children was barefoot whilst the other preferred wearing odd shoes to step outside sans chaussures.

Shoes play a crucial role in social etiquette, in public most people wear socks and closed toe shoes, or failing this socks and sandals, a sight Mr.Geiger would shudder at.  In poorer areas children scamper around barefoot.  Once a child took my hand when I enquired where a certain school could be found, he left me 2 yards away from the entrance, embarrassed to enter with me because he wasn’t wearing any shoes.  I reassured him that it would be ok, but he was adamant that wearing no shoes would be a mark of disrespect to the headmaster. 

I encountered these children on a beach at Cape Coast, they were completely wrapped up in a game of ‘Hide the empty wrapper in the sand then try and find it again’.  One of the children was barefoot whilst the other preferred wearing odd shoes to step outside sans chaussures.

A famous Ghanaian proverb reads: ’If two people carry a log it does not press heavy on their head’ meaning it’s best to share the workload than struggle alone. The most perfect example of this occurred during a surreal jog on the beach, surreal mainly because I was followed by around 20 remarkably fit children who matched my stride perfectly and also because I came across a long line of around seventy men, some of them neck deep in the sea, hauling in the biggest fishing net I’ve ever seen.  It took a while to hoist the net out of the water and it seemed like a perfectly executed operation yet nobody was jostling for control or shouting orders over the top of the throng, it was a genuine example of more hands make less work and proof that no cooks makes the best (fish) broth.

A famous Ghanaian proverb reads: ’If two people carry a log it does not press heavy on their head’ meaning it’s best to share the workload than struggle alone.

The most perfect example of this occurred during a surreal jog on the beach, surreal mainly because I was followed by around 20 remarkably fit children who matched my stride perfectly and also because I came across a long line of around seventy men, some of them neck deep in the sea, hauling in the biggest fishing net I’ve ever seen.  It took a while to hoist the net out of the water and it seemed like a perfectly executed operation yet nobody was jostling for control or shouting orders over the top of the throng, it was a genuine example of more hands make less work and proof that no cooks makes the best (fish) broth.

Dancing is something Ghanains are both very proud of and VERY good at.  Often at night, once all the daily tasks had been completed, members of the community, young and old, would pay us a visit and we would sing and dance into the early hours.  There was no music, instead the beat was set by clapping and stomping, and generally we just made a lot of noise and jiggled about.  Well actually I jiggled about and everyone else busted a serious groove.  I don’t know how they do it but everyone I witnessed dancing had an awesome sense of rhythm.  It’s as if they are born to boogie.  Whilst on the beach I watched a child teaching his friend some funky moves, they were moving in time to the music being played at the bar and after 20 minutes they had a synchronised routine down to a tee.

Dancing is something Ghanains are both very proud of and VERY good at.  Often at night, once all the daily tasks had been completed, members of the community, young and old, would pay us a visit and we would sing and dance into the early hours.  There was no music, instead the beat was set by clapping and stomping, and generally we just made a lot of noise and jiggled about.  Well actually I jiggled about and everyone else busted a serious groove.  I don’t know how they do it but everyone I witnessed dancing had an awesome sense of rhythm.  It’s as if they are born to boogie.  Whilst on the beach I watched a child teaching his friend some funky moves, they were moving in time to the music being played at the bar and after 20 minutes they had a synchronised routine down to a tee.

After arriving home from school after the beginning of my second week in Sepaase the youngest child from the family I was staying with launched himself at me, pleased that I was back so he could have a playmate in his favourite game of stalking the chickens and scaring them shitless.  As I scooped him up I placed a kiss on his forehead and felt him recoil.  One of the elder members of the family saw this and laughed.  I was amused because I thought he was being a typical young boy with the ‘girls are smelly’ attitude and wasn’t surprised that he’d shied away from affection.  I shared this idea with my elderly compatriot and she explained that in Ghana kissing and hugging is reserved for those in a romantic relationship and even then is rarely seen in public.  Thankfully she could appreciate our cultural differences and understood my sign of affection towards the youngster as something akin to matriarchal sentiment.  After I’d been told this however I was wary not to cross this line again, and noticed over time that PDAs just don’t occur in Ghana.  This photo was the only time I saw a couple sharing a physically close moment and as I’d not seen this type of intimacy for so long it took me by surprise.

After arriving home from school after the beginning of my second week in Sepaase the youngest child from the family I was staying with launched himself at me, pleased that I was back so he could have a playmate in his favourite game of stalking the chickens and scaring them shitless.  As I scooped him up I placed a kiss on his forehead and felt him recoil.  One of the elder members of the family saw this and laughed.  I was amused because I thought he was being a typical young boy with the ‘girls are smelly’ attitude and wasn’t surprised that he’d shied away from affection.  I shared this idea with my elderly compatriot and she explained that in Ghana kissing and hugging is reserved for those in a romantic relationship and even then is rarely seen in public.  Thankfully she could appreciate our cultural differences and understood my sign of affection towards the youngster as something akin to matriarchal sentiment.  After I’d been told this however I was wary not to cross this line again, and noticed over time that PDAs just don’t occur in Ghana.  This photo was the only time I saw a couple sharing a physically close moment and as I’d not seen this type of intimacy for so long it took me by surprise.

Ghana, being only 5 degrees north of the Equator and incidentally the nearest geographical landmass to the ‘centre’ of the world, has almost exactly 12 hours of sunlight every day of the year.  Sunrise and sunset are short affairs and on a long coach ride from Kumasi to Cape Coast, which began at 4am in the morning, I stayed awake in earnest to experience what I hoped would be a phenomenal sunrise.  I was slightly disappointed to witness that the sun literally rises in a matter of minutes, no time to hang about creating pretty patterns on the Ghanaian skyline here.  This also meant that my favourite time of day, the half-light in-between dusk and sunset, was considerably shorter in Ghana than in the UK.  I’ve always thought that a certain stillness is created at this time of day, the only thing I can compare it to is the type of quiet you get when it snows, almost peaceful.   I tried to capture ‘my favourite time of day’ in this photo, and whilst I was papping away I was attempting to whistle the Thunderbirds theme tune to my 5 year old companion.  My pathetic attempts at whistling can only be described as abysmal so I was not surprised that my little friend clapped his hand over my mouth and asked me to stop.  However when he cried, ‘Don’t do it the bad spirits will come!’, I became intrigued.  Apparently, according to superstition, it is bad luck to whistle at night as it attracts spirits which bear bad luck…it is also bad form to sing in the shower for the same reasons.  Although I’m not sure whether this was a pretence to stop my early morning renditions of Lion King tunes.

Ghana, being only 5 degrees north of the Equator and incidentally the nearest geographical landmass to the ‘centre’ of the world, has almost exactly 12 hours of sunlight every day of the year.  Sunrise and sunset are short affairs and on a long coach ride from Kumasi to Cape Coast, which began at 4am in the morning, I stayed awake in earnest to experience what I hoped would be a phenomenal sunrise.  I was slightly disappointed to witness that the sun literally rises in a matter of minutes, no time to hang about creating pretty patterns on the Ghanaian skyline here.  This also meant that my favourite time of day, the half-light in-between dusk and sunset, was considerably shorter in Ghana than in the UK.  I’ve always thought that a certain stillness is created at this time of day, the only thing I can compare it to is the type of quiet you get when it snows, almost peaceful.   I tried to capture ‘my favourite time of day’ in this photo, and whilst I was papping away I was attempting to whistle the Thunderbirds theme tune to my 5 year old companion.  My pathetic attempts at whistling can only be described as abysmal so I was not surprised that my little friend clapped his hand over my mouth and asked me to stop.  However when he cried, ‘Don’t do it the bad spirits will come!’, I became intrigued.  Apparently, according to superstition, it is bad luck to whistle at night as it attracts spirits which bear bad luck…it is also bad form to sing in the shower for the same reasons.  Although I’m not sure whether this was a pretence to stop my early morning renditions of Lion King tunes.

On a trip to a plantain farm I was led to a small clearing and presented with a rice field.  It was slightly bizarre and for a second I wondered if I was actually lost somewhere in Asia, but it soon became clear that rice thrives here and represents a source of income for innovative farmers.  This farmer spends almost 8 hours a day in her little umbrella hat picking ripe rice crops, on this occasion she offered me a handful of grasslike stems to examine and showed me how she picked these seeds off each individual stem by hand.  On closer inspection I could see that the actual number of rice seeds on each stem was quite small making the whole process of rice cultivation extremely labour intensive.  It takes alot to get those 50 or so grains into a chicken tikka masala.  

On a trip to a plantain farm I was led to a small clearing and presented with a rice field.  It was slightly bizarre and for a second I wondered if I was actually lost somewhere in Asia, but it soon became clear that rice thrives here and represents a source of income for innovative farmers.  This farmer spends almost 8 hours a day in her little umbrella hat picking ripe rice crops, on this occasion she offered me a handful of grasslike stems to examine and showed me how she picked these seeds off each individual stem by hand.  On closer inspection I could see that the actual number of rice seeds on each stem was quite small making the whole process of rice cultivation extremely labour intensive.  It takes alot to get those 50 or so grains into a chicken tikka masala.

 

One Ghanaian proverb states ‘A child can crush a snail but he can’t crush a tortoise’, this has a similar meaning to the familiar English proverb ‘Don’t walk before you can run’.  Within the Ghanaian household children are expect to perform chores from an early age, they rise with the sun at around  6 in the morning and spend around an hour and a half before school cleaning their compound, sweeping and carrying out their daily routine.  They undertake these tasks happily and are never expected to do more than they are capable of.  This child was sweeping the school playground before classes began.  She was an expert at flicking the dried reeds, a common substitute for a more conventional broom, and single-handedly swept the playground in around 20minutes.

One Ghanaian proverb states ‘A child can crush a snail but he can’t crush a tortoise’, this has a similar meaning to the familiar English proverb ‘Don’t walk before you can run’.  Within the Ghanaian household children are expect to perform chores from an early age, they rise with the sun at around  6 in the morning and spend around an hour and a half before school cleaning their compound, sweeping and carrying out their daily routine.  They undertake these tasks happily and are never expected to do more than they are capable of.  This child was sweeping the school playground before classes began.  She was an expert at flicking the dried reeds, a common substitute for a more conventional broom, and single-handedly swept the playground in around 20minutes.

This is the Door of No Return at Cape Coast Castle, it’s the door that thousands of slaves exited from during the slave trade era, never to step foot on Ghanaian soil again – hence the name ‘Door of No Return’.  In July 2009 President Obama visited Cape Coast Castle and crossed the threshold of the Door of No Return.  He visited the castle following a formal apology from the US Senate to African-Americans for the atrocities and inhumanities which occurred to slaves and their families.  Walking around the castle was slightly eerie, at one point we were inside a small cell which had once held 50 men, there were marks on the floor and walls from where the slaves’ chains had grated and dragged.  Our tour guide pointed to the ceiling and told us that above the chamber the British had build a church and whilst they prayed to God slaves beneath them stood knee deep in their own excrement.  The guide said that many nicknamed this part of the castle ‘Heaven and Hell on Earth’.   

This is the Door of No Return at Cape Coast Castle, it’s the door that thousands of slaves exited from during the slave trade era, never to step foot on Ghanaian soil again – hence the name ‘Door of No Return’.  In July 2009 President Obama visited Cape Coast Castle and crossed the threshold of the Door of No Return.  He visited the castle following a formal apology from the US Senate to African-Americans for the atrocities and inhumanities which occurred to slaves and their families.  Walking around the castle was slightly eerie, at one point we were inside a small cell which had once held 50 men, there were marks on the floor and walls from where the slaves’ chains had grated and dragged.  Our tour guide pointed to the ceiling and told us that above the chamber the British had build a church and whilst they prayed to God slaves beneath them stood knee deep in their own excrement.  The guide said that many nicknamed this part of the castle ‘Heaven and Hell on Earth’.   

On my way back from the market one afternoon I was drawn to some eccentric singing and shouts of jubilation.  I spied a large crowd through a narrow alley and hid there for a while, I soon learnt to hide when lots of people were gathered together as if I didn’t I was called upon to do some sort of speech or even worse a dance.  As I peeked out I watched as around 50 or so people, all dressed in black, sung exuberantly to the high heavens and performed a ritualistic dance around a closed casket covered with colourful trinkets.  I soon gathered I was watching a funeral, but unlike the sombre British affairs, this one looked quite fun.  I returned to the house feeling strangely uplifted and a few hours later a family friend arrived fresh from the funeral wearing her traditional funeral attire, she was eager for me to take her photo as she was particularly proud of her outfit.  I took the opportunity to enquire about funeral practicalities in Ghana and, all in all, it seems a funeral is a very social occasion.  There are many customs to respect, far too many to go into, but in my discussion with this lady we fell onto the topic of burials and she asked if people were cremated in the UK.  I explained that it was usually a choice made by an individual before they died and sometimes depended on their religion but yes, some people in the UK get cremated.  This shocked and saddened her and she explained that in Ghana people only get buried, this is because it is believed their spirit continues after their death and if a person were to be cremated their spirit would disappear forever.

On my way back from the market one afternoon I was drawn to some eccentric singing and shouts of jubilation.  I spied a large crowd through a narrow alley and hid there for a while, I soon learnt to hide when lots of people were gathered together as if I didn’t I was called upon to do some sort of speech or even worse a dance.  As I peeked out I watched as around 50 or so people, all dressed in black, sung exuberantly to the high heavens and performed a ritualistic dance around a closed casket covered with colourful trinkets.  I soon gathered I was watching a funeral, but unlike the sombre British affairs, this one looked quite fun.  I returned to the house feeling strangely uplifted and a few hours later a family friend arrived fresh from the funeral wearing her traditional funeral attire, she was eager for me to take her photo as she was particularly proud of her outfit.  I took the opportunity to enquire about funeral practicalities in Ghana and, all in all, it seems a funeral is a very social occasion.  There are many customs to respect, far too many to go into, but in my discussion with this lady we fell onto the topic of burials and she asked if people were cremated in the UK.  I explained that it was usually a choice made by an individual before they died and sometimes depended on their religion but yes, some people in the UK get cremated.  This shocked and saddened her and she explained that in Ghana people only get buried, this is because it is believed their spirit continues after their death and if a person were to be cremated their spirit would disappear forever.

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